Metroid Prime 4: Beyond preview – worth the wait?

It's been eight years since Metroid Prime 4: Beyond was first announced. Eighteen years since Metroid Prime 3.

Over such lengthy waits, you could forgive fans for losing hope in the game – that it was doomed to development hell, that it may not even arrive, or simply losing interest in it.

But for the most part, Metroid fans are as excited for Metroid Prime 4 than they ever have been (if not more so), and following a hands-on preview, I can say that they are certainly right to be.

Metroid Prime 4 opens up with a short, tutorial-like level that explains the basics of the game to you.

After taking down a rather simple boss at the end, a mysterious explosion of energy ripples across the planet, and Samus awakes moments later in the jungle of an unknown world.

Viewros is, or rather was, home to the Lamorn, a once-highly advanced but long since dead civilisation.

Samus, lucky her, is the chosen one, selected by the last of the Lamorn to take their knowledge off-planet to spread their story with the universe.

Unfortunately, she'll first have to find three keys to get the teleport working – thus begins our story proper.

For anyone that has played previous Metroid Prime titles, Metroid Prime 4 doesn't massively shake things up, but polishes them to a mirror sheen.

Gunplay is fantastic, and as someone that typically only plays shooters on PC and therefore cannot aim with a controller to save his life, I am exceedingly thankful for the Switch 2's new mouse functionality.

At first, your weaponry is very bare bones, limited to just your most basic blaster shots.

As you proceed, Samus will begin to restore her suit's capabilities, adding missiles and the like back into her arsenal.

The jungles of Lamorn look fantastic, and are a joy to explore. As you proceed through, you're encouraged to make heavy use of Samus's visor to scan anything and everything you see.

Beyond interesting factoids about the flora and fauna, this does deliver some very helpful information about how best to dispatch the various hostile creatures you come across.

The world is also full of puzzles, none of which are particularly hard to solve, but are satisfying nonetheless.

Between the jungle setting, puzzle-heavy gameplay and the concept of the Lamorn and their lost civilisation, I couldn't help but feel like Metroid Prime 4 has an air of The Legend of Zelda about it – a big plus, in my book.

Central to Samus's abilities in Metroid Prime 4 are the psychic powers afforded her by the Lamorn.

These abilities allow Samus to telekinetically interact with various doors, orbs, switches and more, shifting everything into the right place to solve some harder puzzles.

They also have some combat applications, allowing Samus to guide missiles in slow-motion towards their target, something that comes in very handy upon fighting the next boss.

Going into this preview, the one thing I was most excited for was the prospect of the new motorcycle that has been so heavily teased, but alas, the motorcycle comes in a later section of the game.

I had around 75 minutes to play Metroid Prime 4, and while that feels like enough to see the basics of what the game has to offer, I was certainly disappointed not to have longer.

Not because I didn't think that 75 minutes was enough to see what Metroid Prime 4 has to offer, but the very opposite.

The best thing you can say after one of these preview events is, "I wish I could have played more."

It's safe to say that this was all I was thinking as I left the jungle for the next Lamornian vista to explore.

When a game takes so long to come out as Metroid Prime 4, a certain mythos forms around it, with expectations growing higher and higher as the years pass.

I can't say for sure whether Metroid Prime 4 will live up to those lofty expectations for some fans.

What I can say, however, is that Metroid Prime 4 is shaping up to be everything I wanted from it, and certainly the follow-up to 3 that we've been waiting for. I just hope the rest of the game continues what this preview has started.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond releases on 4th December 2025 for Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch.

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